Rimstalker wrote:
Of course, this is where the 2nd part with alternating mass comes in, which hopefully allows you to catch his lowest ID ship . But then again, the Priv can gamble on his tower having low crew so that it gets captured and can be stolen back

Still peddling that varying-mass theory eh Rimsey? You might want to take a look at this

But that is just part of the fun to be had with the Orion. Because the Dacian is quite simplified.
In fact, why limit yourself to 1 fuel? If you build a proper calculator, your options become quite impressive.

For instance, suppose your MCRB with Mk8 and HP wants to tow an Annihilation he knows nothing about.
The lightest version of the Annihilation has no weapons and torps tubes, 1 fuel and no cargo: 961 mass
The heaviest version of the Annihilation has heavy blasters and gamma tubes, 320 fuel and 1260 cargo: 2650 mass
You can tow this Annihilation in any possible configuration with no risk between 2 - 64 ly, using 1 - 35 fuel.
(http://phost.de/~stefan/fuelusage.html#dry)

Now what I'm wondering about, as this tactic does not work in PHost, does the 1 fuel Dacian trick work in PHost?
Guess I've got some tests to do

Privs managed to tow a Rush even though their mission was towing the IDs mentione above.

Uhhhhh.... I suspect you may not understand the tow rules. You need to get the low ID ships to tow the Rushes, not the other way around. The reason for this is that the tow order is done by ship ID, therefore having your low ID ships doing the towing means they will move off the planet before the priv ships (with higher ID) get the chance to tow you. Having the Rushes doing the towing will only work if the Rush itself has a low ID (or at least a lower ID than the towing priv ship). If the priv sees you doing this however, he'll probably just bring in his lowest ID cloaker to tow off your towers, thus opening up the Rushes to the higher ID priv towers.

Of course, this is where the 2nd part with alternating mass comes in, which hopefully allows you to catch his lowest ID ship . But then again, the Priv can gamble on his tower having low crew so that it gets captured and can be stolen back

Thanks for the Tow ID# explanation

That may have been the case I had the Rush #30 towing sh#45 in this case a big ship and I didnt see the ID of the Privs Ship. but even still in this case Rush 1500KT+ towing Sh#45 1300KT to me that means the MBR would have to tow 2800KT approx.

Doesnt that mean the MBR would have to brake the tow of the Rush.

Thanks Sinner

Up here in space, I'm looking down on you
My Lasers trace, Everything you do
There is no true escape
I'm watching all the time

one ships tows another ship. First ship to successfully lock a towbeam gets to tow the ship. _possibly_ you can tow into the warpwell, get dragged back and be towed again, too lazy to check that right now